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by
Tao looked at his sleeping lover, not willing to close his eyes for more than an instant to blink. This marked the second time that Dar had died on him, killed himself come to think of it, and Tao was hesitant to go to sleep. He had an unreasoning fear that if he slept, Dar wouldn't be alive when he woke up. The dying campfire bathed the golden warrior half in its fading light and half in shadow. It seemed as though the realm of the dead was trying to reclaim what had been so recently in its grasp.
Tao shuddered, wrapping his arms around his nauseas stomach and continued to stare even though the images in his mind stamped out the sight before his eyes.
The clasp of their hands. The tiny vial the only promise that his lover would return cradled protectively between their fingers. The look on Dar's face when the poison hit his system, seven different kinds of poison that were deadly on their own, never mind taken in conjunction. Dar's eyes opened as widely as possible in shock from the death the warrior had drunk down.
His own fingers gently closing those sightless eyes.
Another shudder broke over him and Tao pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them for the illusion of more stability. This was so wrong. This whole quest that brought Dar into Zad's focus of destruction. The danger was going to be thick around them for a long time to come, perhaps forever.
The thought came unwanted and unbidden: `I never thought that I could miss Voden.'
But with Voden around, Zad had been balanced in power. With Voden around, Zad had been in constant contest to maintain and gain more power. Tao would take Voden's spoiled madness over Zad's ruthless brutality any day. Now there was nothing except Dar in Zad's path to domination. Nothing but a lone man with too much conscience and too much courage to think there was any other option.
Tao would begrudge Dar his family in a heartbeat if it meant that his lover would stay safe. That made him a coward in his heart but that was all there was to it. If it was a trade between Dar living and dying over his family staying spelled forever, Tao would have no hesitation in choosing. It had taken all his will not to dump the pot of poison into the cook fire. Tao didn't know if he could survive going through something like that again but suspected that he would have ample opportunity to find out.
"You should sleep."
The words were almost too soft for Tao to hear. Shifting his eyes from the rise and fall of Dar's chest to his lover's face, Tao met the warrior's eyes. "I'm not tired."
Dar sat, pulling the blanket up with him, keeping it wrapped around him. He'd been cold ever since returning through the Veil of Death. "What's wrong?"
For a long moment, Tao said nothing, simply because to speak would bring everything pouring out: all the anger and guilt and fear. Taking a firm grip on his emotions, Tao breathed deeply and willed the feelings down. "Nothing."
A wry half-smile appeared on Dar's face. "It doesn't take you half a minute to tell me there's nothing wrong when there's really nothing wrong."
That was the problem with knowing each other so well. Tao shrugged, still uncertain what he could say that wouldn't reveal too much. "I'm just still…thinking about this afternoon."
Dar looked at him silently for a moment before saying, "I'm sorry for putting you through that."
"But you would do it again," Tao said flatly.
Jaw tightening, Dar replied, "If I had to, yes. Tao, we've been through this more than once."
Practically biting out the words, Tao said, "I know."
This time Dar frowned. "You're holding something back."
`My soul! My heart! The fact that you've ripped it to pieces by dying twice!' Tao wanted to scream at him. Taking a shaky breath, Tao said, "I can't talk about this right now."
"Tao."
Tao held up a hand. "No. Please Dar, don't ask me to talk about this, not right now."
Dar crawled over to him, sitting directly beside Tao so that the blanket rubbed against Tao's shoulder. "I can't let Zad win. I have to save my family."
This time, Tao kept his eyes on the center of the flames that were flickering slowly into nothingness. If he looked at Dar, he knew that he would lose control and truly shout at the other man. Dar sat by his side silently, not making any motion to touch him. After a long time, the urge to wrap himself around Dar overwhelmed him and Tao shifted, half facing the bigger man and looking up into the shadowed eyes.
Dar's arms opened instantly and Tao moved just as quickly into them, burying his face into the hollow of the warrior's neck and shoulder. He breathed in Dar's warm, fragrant scent and imagined that he could smell the taint of death lingering there. Almost without realizing it, tears slipped out, hot and heavy to fall against Dar's skin.
"Please tell me."
The whispered pleading broke through Tao's last defenses. "You left me. Again. You killed yourself. Again. I had to watch you die. Again. Dar, I can't keep doing this. You're killing me, piece by piece, and I don't know how much more of it I can take."
Dar's arms tightened around him. "I'm sorry."
"I hate your father for placing this on you. For putting you in the path of greatest destruction," Tao admitted with shame. Pulling back so that he could see his lover's eyes, Tao said fervently, "If you die again, Dar, I am not going stay behind."
Helplessly, Dar said, "I couldn't take you with me, not through the Veil of Death."
Tao shook his head. "No. I mean I *will not* stay behind again. If you put yourself into death's path on purpose one more time, I *will not* be here when you get back. If you get back."
Shocked, Dar's mouth worked a few times without any sound. Finally finding his tongue, Dar said, "I need you. I...you're what brings me back, Tao."
Shaking his head violently, Tao repeated, "I *won't* be here. I *can't* do it again."
"Tao, you're the only one I trust enough to be able to do these things," Dar said urgently. "I looked to you as my anchor each time. It wasn't the Ancient One's powers that brought me back after my death from the rogue tiger, it was you. I could hear you, your voice whispered to me, I could feel your love for me pulling me back. And this time it was your blood, flowing now inside my own veins, that brought me back."
Startled, Tao asked, "How do you know about that?"
Taking Tao's hand, Dar placed it over his heart. "Because I feel it as certainly as I feel my own blood coursing through me. Tao, without you, I can't do this, any of this."
Closing his eyes against the statement that ripped his heart even further into little pieces, Tao groaned and shoved away from Dar. Stumbling a short distance away, he finally lost his battle with his stomach and heaved out his evening meal onto the ground. Dar's arms surrounded him from behind but Tao pushed them away and staggered to his feet, coming to a stop against a nearby tree. Wiping the bile from his mouth with the back of his hand, Tao demanded bitterly, "Are you saying that you wouldn't be able to kill yourself without me?"
Shocked, Dar shook his head, hand reaching out then falling away at Tao's flinch. Quietly, Dar explained, "I'm saying that you are the only thing bringing me back. I would still have to try if you weren't here but I doubt that I would succeed without you."
Beautiful. So he had a choice of staying with Dar to try and save him from an untimely death or leaving and possibly letting Dar die for real because he wasn't there to bring him back from the untimely death. This time his soul joined his heart into shattering into hundreds of pieces.
Strong arms gathered him close but Tao fought the embrace in a sudden rage. He pushed and punched and slapped and kicked but Dar wouldn't let him go. The warrior wrestled him to the ground, holding him tight enough to be certain Tao couldn't hurt himself but not tight enough to hurt. Words screamed out of his mouth as he struggled. "Hate you. Hate this. Madness. Never going to end. You're going to leave. Alone again. Hate you. I hate you. I hate you."
When the fit began to pass, Tao realized with horror just what he was saying and changed it. "I love you. Please don't leave me. Need you. Love you."
Dar captured his mouth with bruising intensity and released his hold on Tao's arms. Tao immediately threw them around Dar's neck and pulled him close, opening his mouth to his lover and feeding and being fed on the contact. His cock stirred as Dar ground into him and Tao hooked a leg over Dar's hip, yanking them closer together even though that gave Dar less room to maneuver.
Tao moaned into Dar's mouth as fingernails scratched fire down his bare arms before clamping onto Tao's hips. He needed this so badly, needed to know that Dar was alive and not going to leave him. As though sensing this, Dar pulled his mouth away to lick, bite and suck his way down one side of Tao's neck then up the other, leaving little stinging marks in his wake. All the while, their groins shifted and pressed into each other, cocks hardening to the point of near-pain.
Before latching his mouth onto Tao's again, Dar whispered, "I love you. I'll never leave you."
Tao exploded at the words, shouting Dar's name a scant second before Dar roared through his own release. Tao held tight to Dar when his lover tried to take some of his weight off, tangling their legs together and forcing Dar to remain on him. It was a little difficult to breathe but there was no way he would let go; now or ever. He relished every heavy breath as Dar drifted off into sleep, cradled in his arms. He lived for each drop of sweat the slid onto him from Dar's bare torso.
Dar had escaped the Veil of Death twice now. Pressing his lips to his lover's shoulder, Tao prayed that it had closed for good this time, for both their sakes.
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